TEDxToledo conference to spread concepts of ‘human experience’

A group of speakers is preparing to give the “talk of their lives” in 18 minutes or less.

This is Will Lucas’ Third year organizing TedxToledo. toledo free press file photo by Joseph Herr

What they will talk about at the third annual TEDxToledo is being closely guarded for the first time in the event’s history, however, and will not be revealed until they appear on stage.

TEDxToledo organizer Will Lucas is keeping this year’s specific topics under wraps and will not disclose what audience members can expect at the daylong conference Sept. 18.

“We don’t reveal the subject matter of the talk until they’re on stage,” Lucas said. “Our goal, in an effort to continue to keep getting better, is to give people a chance to come and witness the event without any preconceived ideals. Come open and ready to learn and share.”

Lucas organized the first TEDxToledo in 2012 with the theme “You Will Do Better.” In 2013, the idea of improving the city continued with the theme “reIMAGINE.”

This year, the roster of 17 speakers will give talks on the theme “Human: Exploring the many dynamics of the human experience.” To view a listing of the speakers, go to www.tedxtoledo.com.

TEDxToledo is the local version of the international TED talks. The acronym stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design. TED is a nonprofit dedicated to spreading ideas in the form of short talks (18 minutes or less). Beginning in 1984 as a conference, today it covers a wide range of topics from science to business to global issues, according to its website.

“TED is … committed to ‘Ideas Worth Spreading,’” said Susan Zimmerman, executive assistant to TED’s curator in New York and a former Toledoan. “Those ideas vary in just about every way imaginable and can be seen in the most far-reaching corners of the globe, from the high-tech Vancouver stage of TED2014 to a chalkboard in a one-room hut in Malawi. … Our goal: to spark conversation, action and learning.”

The conference is a chance to bring people together and form connections, Lucas said.

“TED and TEDx events are the only places I know in the world where you can go to a conference and see a CEO sitting next to a farmer, and they are talking about the same thing,” he said. “For a moment in time, they are pushed in the same direction.”

Lucas and his organizing partners, Sam Melden and Molly Luetke, who started planning the event in December, decided to do something different this year based on advice from the international TED organization on ways to enhance their TEDx.

In the past, they normally would find speakers and then decide the topics of the talks. For this year’s event, they narrowed down the topics and then went in search of speakers.

“It kind of changed the way we thought. That has really enhanced it this year, “ Luetke said. “Our biggest challenge was to come up with topics. We wanted new and interesting ideas. Part of the problem was coming up with a subject that hasn’t been done before.”

That’s why organizers brought in another group of about eight people who could help identify topics and find speakers. The group gave great input and fresh ideas, Luetke said, giving organizers a conference with speakers who don’t resemble what would be considered a usual TEDxToledo event.

The speakers — seven women and 10 men — come from a broad range of professions and backgrounds.

There are professors, doctors, artists, a CEO and a mom.

“I’m super excited about the line-up and I think that they are people who do wonderful things in the community, but who are not necessarily people who have a platform on a daily basis,” Luetke said.

“Not everyone will agree with the idea the person has, but that makes for interesting conversation. We’re just hoping it causes further conversation and that’s what TED is all about. I think our speakers this year will really challenge folks.”

TEDxToledo speakers Eugenio Mollo, Maara Fink and Dr. Matt Roth.

Toledo Free Press photo and cover photo by Michael Nemeth

TED talks have a reputation for being cutting edge and thought-provoking.

“I’m more excited about these speakers than in the first two years combined and that doesn’t take away from the first two years,” Lucas said.

Maara Fink, clinical professor of law at the University of Toledo, is one of the speakers at this year’s TEDxToledo. According to TEDxToledo guidelines, Fink could not divulge any information on the topic she plans to discuss, but said she was honored the organizers chose her.

“I hadn’t necessarily thought I would ever be able to be a part of [TEDxToledo] but was certainly honored to have been asked and it was through a wonderful group of folks who put this panel together that felt that I might have something to contribute,” she said.

She knows not everyone will agree with her ideas or see things from her perspective, but she hopes to nudge people’s minds in a way that will allow them to see things in a different light, she said.

“We all think our ideas are interesting and unique and, for me, [the goal is] to define them in a way that’s interesting for a diverse audience and you hope you touch each audience member in some way,” she said.

Organizers selected the theme “Human” was selected after picking out particular topics they wanted to hear.

“I realized that all our ideas for talks seemed to hover around the idea of the human experience, and the name ‘Human’ just came to me during our organizer meeting,” Lucas said.

Back in 2011, Lucas got the idea to organize a TEDx event in Toledo after watching a video of Steve Jobs’ 2005 Stanford University commencement address, which was linked to the TED website.

At the time, Lucas, with his technology background, felt frustrated by the lack of a technology community in Toledo.

“I was tired of it,” he said. “[I thought] if I can bring that type of energy to Toledo it would raise the level of conversation. That’s why I got involved in it.”

This year’s budget from donations and sponsors is $10,000. That money will pay for the event facility, videographers and other expenses, Lucas said. The event is nonprofit, so all money from ticket sales will go toward the event or be donated.

Last year, money raised was donated to the Young Men and Women of Excellence program at Toledo Public Schools. Speakers are not paid.

Speaker Eugenio Mollo, a local attorney, called the process of developing a TEDxToledo talk “challenging.”

As speakers develop their talks, they meet with a TEDxToledo curation committee made up of a marketing representative and theater representative, among others, Mollo said. Each critiqued parts of his speech and give him pointers on how to speak more effectively.

“There’s a lot of support and practice and there’s a lot of effort that goes on behind the scenes of a TEDx,” he said.

As an attorney, most of Mollo’s public speaking experience has come in a courtroom.

“A lot of people think, ‘You’re a lawyer and this comes naturally for you,’ but this is a different environment,” Mollo said. “It’s a different audience and a different presentation style.”

Dr. Matt Roth, a primary care practitioner and physician for the Toledo Walleye hockey team, said he doesn’t necessarily consider himself an expert on any given topic, but was excited and honored to be selected as a TEDxToledo speaker. Although he couldn’t give away details of his topic, Roth said the TEDxToledo team coached him on his presentation and that the conference will be exceptional.

“We each had our individual sessions, but you arrive when the other one is finishing up so you have some overlap … so you get a little bit of a glimpse of what’s coming,” Roth said. “It definitely encourages me. All these other talks are great and they’re doing good things — a wide variety of different subjects that fall under the human emphasis.”

Tickets to the conference the first year sold out at $100 each. The second year, they were $75 with a buffet lunch included. This year, they’re $49. Organizers figured out if they don’t include lunch, they can reduce ticket prices, Lucas said. Lunch this year will be offered by local food trucks, which will offer reduced rates, he said.

If area residents find themselves hungering for TEDx talks throughout the year, they won’t have to wait until next year before Toledo hosts another one. New this year, Lucas said he has identified four “community stewards” who will oversee four “mini” TEDxToledo events to be held during the remainder of this year and into the next, Lucas said. Some of this year’s topics could become themes for the mini TEDxToledo talks.

TEDxToledo 2014 is set for 8:45 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at the West Toledo YMCA/Start High School Theater at 2110 Tremainsville Road.

Richardson: Toledo’s delicate balance

I think it was in May of this year when I met local singer/songwriter Meaghan Roberts. I was playing music on an art bench on South St. Clair Street in the Warehouse District and she was on her way to have some pizza at Home Slice with a mutual friend. They approached, and our friend introduced us by saying, “You’re both chick singers, so you probably can’t like each other.”

We each smiled and assured him there was no need for competition; there is room enough for us both on the Toledo music scene. Since then, we have shared a stage at the Old West End Festival, we’ve tried a couple of duets, and she even handed me her enormous shoes to fill as the co-host of Manhattan’s Monday night Open Mic Night with Jason Quick while she goes back to school for the fall.

This weekly open mic night, incidentally, has been going strong for five years and attracts some really quality players with hearts the size of the whole room. Meaghan has been training me for the past couple of weeks and I have been watching her very closely.

I am so impressed and inspired by her skill and professionalism as a musician, but even more by how easily she supports other musicians. The atmosphere she and Jason and the staff of Manhattan’s provide for those coming in to try out their stage legs makes my heart warm and I instantly felt like I was in a room full of respect and nurturing.

This brings me to a slight point of frustration I’ve encountered enough times lately to remark on. Little worms of sabotage and discouragement have made their way into my awareness and it’s getting on my nerves. I know that I am unreasonably optimistic most of the time. I know the look that people get when they talk to me, right before they start shaking their heads slightly at my audacity in thinking that everything is always just fine. Perfect, in fact. So, I’m probably extra sensitive to negativity because I feel like it’s my responsibility to squash it.

The reason for this is because the balance we’ve achieved in Toledo at this moment in time hovers so delicately between risk-taking, creativity and being entrepreneurial that any wind that threatens to blow us over

must be diligently withstood if we are going to continue building something solid. Not only are many of us trying our dreams on for size to make this a lively, vibrant, magical place to live, but most of us understand that we are all on the same team in these efforts.

Having that basic comfort provides us with very sure footing that helps us continue. So, the people who participate in the culture, but who also play a bit of Jenga by poking holes in other artists’ participation should consider focusing on their own skills and contributions rather than diluting their energies by undercutting the work of their fellow culture creators.

This is not to say that constructive criticism and respectful critique should be outlawed. But the underlying support and acceptance from the community must always be evident. We must never wish failure on each other.

We should only build each other’s confidence and loudly exclaim to one another that we can achieve better and more, as individuals and as a city. Self-loathing is only funny some of the time. And when it manifests in undermining the talents of your neighbors, it can do real damage. Toledo has nearly talked itself all the way out of its historically crippling inferiority complex. The signs are becoming more and more clear that the city is starting to feel pretty damn good about itself. This, of course, means that the best is yet to come. It’s not too late for the crabby apples to jump onboard. We’ll still have you. But if you can’t encourage the success of your fellow artists, we’ll be forced to leave you behind.

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Urban Activist roundtable: Re-design Toledo

A shift has occurred within the hearts and minds of many in Toledo’s creative community.

During the past four years, a budding group of well-educated, passionate social and artistic entrepreneurs has been laying the foundations for a cultural and economic change in Downtown that has the potential to redefine what Toledo stands for to its citizens and the Midwest.

Our city has a diverse and talented population of visual artists, designers, musicians/producers, poets, writers, social activists and cultural entrepreneurs who have carved out career niches for themselves spanning across artistic disciplines.

We share a collective identity, strengthened by the affirmation of community and rooted in the collective discoveries made as we transform our inner passions and strengths into physical manifestations of visual art or economically productive business enterprises.

We have all heard glorious stories in the media of second-tier, Rust Belt cities re-emerging from post-industrial distress to become centers of economic development and cultural meccas for artists and innovators. Although it may not be obvious to those who live in the suburbs, this story of urban rejuvenation is our story — Toledo’s story.

Those of us who have a lead role in the narrative, numbering in the hundreds and possibly thousands, invite all Toledo Free Press Star readers and Northwest Ohio residents to actively engage in helping to build and broaden the economic and cultural base of the Great Lakes region.

A small and dedicated few of Toledo’s creative community recently assembled to share our collective and individual histories, and most importantly, our thoughts regarding what we need to sustain and grow our sphere of influence within the city and region.

Through sharing our dialogue with readers of Toledo Free Press Star, we hope to inspire others to get involved in the artistic and creative community, to be the positive change we’d like to see for ourselves and the future of Toledo and the surrounding area.

The late Allan Kaprow, a well-known artist, critic and writer on the dissolution of boundaries between art and life, famously stated that acts of passive regard, even with a trained eye and critical mind, do not signify participation. Stated otherwise, to see and observe is not the same as to be involved.

Consider this an invitation to fully participate in the reshaping of Toledo.

Jules Webster is owner of Shine Ceramics and The Art Supply Dep?, a fine art supply store coming in July to Downtown Toledo. Stacy Jurich is a community organizer and freelancer. Both women are Toledo Free Press Star columnists.

Urban Activist Roundtable

Editor’s Note: Comments have been edited for length.

JULES WEBSTER: Welcome, thanks for coming. So what do we need to sustain and what do we need to grow this creative movement?

STACY JURICH: Just to recap what scene we have here: we have poets, muralists, Hip-Hop artists, visual artists, activists, entrepreneurs. We have people to document the creative class with video, recording studios, writers. We have potters, all kinds of musicians, people with access to radio, newspapers, TV.

Urban Activist Roundtable at Blarney irish Pub.

IMANI LATEEF: Space is the thing we need the most. It’s nice to have the galleries and a lot of friendly venues, but you only get a space like Artomatic for a couple weeks. We need a space like Artomatic that’s there 365 days a year that we can work in if we wanted and that’s a community-type space for events. There’s so much talent in the city, but all the talent is forced to go to only a handful of places.

DUSTIN HOSTETLER: There’s so much talent out there, but most people are working from their homes. People are creating stuff in really isolated situations. Why things like Artomatic are so successful is because for a short amount of time you showcase stuff that normally you are keeping to yourself or selling outside of Toledo. That’s why [Jerry Gray’s] gallery [Bozarts] is so successful, because it’s focusing on these people who are producing lots of work, but that were doing it mostly behind closed doors. It’s a venue where there’s no pretenses — just show them what you got. We would benefit so much from some sort of more accessible workspace …

BEN LANGLOIS: Like a library, but for art …

DUSTIN HOSTETLER: … Where you could go in and use materials and interact with people. That’s the benefit of Artomatic.

KC SAINT JOHN: And maybe opening it up to educate, encouraging the community to come in …

DUSTIN HOSTETLER: Teaching music because the schools aren’t doing it. It’s the same idea. It’s opening up venues where we’re taking over some of this stuff because it’s not available otherwise.

IMANI LATEEF: It might not be a matter of finding space as much as introducing ourselves as a body to these organizations that need us, like going to the Boys & Girls Club, or going to a Y …

BEN LANGLOIS: Or the Catholic Club on 17th. There are already kids going there every day. That’s a captive audience, information sponges.

LILD: But more than that — and I can only really speak from the Hip-Hop end of it — there needs to be confidence instilled in the artists here. It takes a lot of confidence to take constructive criticism and until the people in the arts here realize they are good enough to make it — Lyfe Jennings made it, Anita Baker is from here. Part of what I’m doing is showing that it’s not about where you’re from or what they say about your CD, it’s about what you do. The artists here don’t believe they can go anywhere. Once they get popular here, they stop because they’re afraid to go to the next city and start over.

STACY JURICH: Other people need to realize there is so much talent here, so that everyone doesn’t have to look to the big cities for the new music or a new CD or a cool scene — they can look here.

DUSTIN HOSTETLER: Not only does the public need to appreciate the talent, but the venues and the promoters need to appreciate the talent is as good or better than the talent they are bringing in. It’s easier for me to get an art show in New York than it is in Toledo; it’s easier for bands to get a gig in Detroit or Ann Arbor than it is in Toledo. It’s a grass is always greener thing.

KC SAINT JOHN: I see a lot of bands saturate the market here. I also see bands that don’t go out of town. You can count on your friends only so often. You’ve got to put your heart on your sleeve, go to another town and then see if your music will stand.

Gig swap. This is something I always tell bands. Get out there and start networking and working together because, just like this group here in Toledo, there are groups that are trying to do the same thing there, so definitely keep pushing things out of Toledo, bringing things through. And document. Record everything. When you go play your show in Chicago, record your show in Chicago. You can’t have a “Live in Paris” CD if you don’t go to Paris and play.

JULES WEBSTER: We’re all doing really amazing things and we all need to do a better job of documenting and then sharing that documentation. It would do a lot for all of us and get us into the suburbs. We’ve got to get us and our business and our art and our music and our poetry into the ’burbs. And get the ’burbs to come Downtown.

RACHEL RICHARDSON: And not even all the way out to the ‘burbs. When you [Tim Ide] said part of your show would be to document the architecture of a home in the Old West End, why aren’t we documenting architecture in Old Orchard or on the East Side or on George Street Corridor? We need to include the rest of Toledo into this.

I’m being told from a lot of different directions that the Old West End is a very exclusive club and we don’t let anybody in and that is really working on my nerves because I know that I try really hard to include everybody. But I might also be guilty of never going to Perrysburg or Sylvania. I need to work on it myself, but we all need to make Toledoans feel welcome, not just people who hang out in Downtown and in the Old West End.

One of my major goals is to revitalize Downtown; that’s still in my mindset. That’s because I want the people from Sylvania and Perrysburg to come and spend their money in Downtown. But we need to make them feel welcome if they are going to come and spend their money with us.

RYAN BUNCH: I’m interested in getting our story out to people because they need to come down and see what’s happening. But the other thing that needs to happen is while we’re expanding out we really need to focus on expanding inward; Toledo is a very culturally segregated place. It’s not incredibly diverse. I get that comment a lot that when you look around a table, it’s

Ryan Bunch

predominantly white faces. That’s one of the things I loved about the Ground Level. When you walked in that place, everybody was just cool and it didn’t matter, and that was a really rare thing. I think about this a lot. And I don’t know what the answer is. Part of it is we don’t have any mass transportation. We don’t encounter each other on a regular basis in our daily lives, so we kind of live two separate lives. We live at separate parts of the neighborhoods and we don’t cross paths very often. As we’re trying to draw people from the suburbs to come down and see our events, we need to think about who’s already down here, who’s two to three blocks away that’s not coming to the event, that doesn’t know it’s happening right next door to them.

NATHAN MATTIMOE: Collaborating, I think that’s the key to that. I don’t know the Hip-Hop scene in Toledo and I love Hip-Hop. I would love to see more live Hip-Hop at [Ottawa Tavern] or Frankies. It’s opening our minds to different cultural aspects in Toledo. That’s the neat part of Old West End Records. It’s not genre-based at all; it’s completely diverse. Thinking outside of the Old West End and the Ottawa Tavern and these specific hubs is really important because it’s sad to me to get content. Being content is going to be the worst thing that’s gonna happen because we’ll never grow, we’ll never change and we’ll never evolve. We’ll just be cool with what’s been tried already.

JASON QUICK: Toledo is a car culture. People are gonna go where they want to go. If they want to come Downtown and check out whatever, they’re gonna get down here.

JERRY GRAY: This might not come as a shock but a more diverse audience is ideal. A more intelligent audience is what it creates. We need to organize ourselves; we need to organize people, whether it’s patrons, or audience, or artists, or ourselves, our information, we need to document ongoingly, and have the stuff we’ve already documented to put ourselves in context. I have a lot of ideas about starting a digital cultural archive. We could have all our portfolios on two or three terabytes, and that’s a couple hundred bucks. If we set that all up in a formatted way where people could sift through to find the information they want, it can be done fairly easily. People could pay to submit their information, people could pay to buy the information It could become an institution in a moment.

K Saint John and Mighty Wyte.

RYAN BUNCH: Rachel mentioned that we get criticism for being cliquey or exclusionary. I’ve thought about that and I was really concerned about it and then I kind of arrived at the conclusion that that perception comes from a group of people who are working really hard to take control of their neighborhood, and our neighborhood is primarily Downtown. I think you can’t revitalize a city from Old Orchard; it’s not a hub and it’s never going to be. This is the hub, this is the city, this has to live and live really strong before any of that is going to succeed. So if those people are upset about it, then they have a responsibility to take control of their own communities and their own neighborhoods.

JERRY GRAY: I’ve been attacked for not being diverse enough or hospitable enough.

STACY JURICH: Just to comment on what Bunch said about the culture of being culturally segregated, we need to take responsibility amongst ourselves before we start trying to convince suburban people to come Downtown. We need to step out of our own comfort zones. I went to the Peacock Café to hear Hip-Hop, first time I’ve ever been there. And because you [lilD] are writing in the paper and I am aware of those Hip-Hop shows, I went to the Peacock Cafe instead of going to the OT like I do every other day of the week. So I think if we want to see Hip-Hop, we need to go to where that’s playing instead of trying to get it to come to the OT.

JULES WEBSTER: Maybe we could all just try to be a little more friendly, try to welcome people to our events that we’ve never met before. I actually had someone at Bozarts once who asked me if I worked for the City of Toledo. (laughter) I was like ‘Welcome to Toledo, glad you’re here!’ But I’d like to encourage everyone to do that. One thing I also think we need to work on is financial

Jules Webster

responsibility for artists, changing that perception of the lazy, unemployed, hard to get a hold of, won’t return phone calls artist. I think a lot of us have probably been that at some point in our careers. I think we’re all past that now, but if we could just kind of keep working on that and keep encouraging that and encouraging financial responsibility and savings. One thing I’m hearing from everyone is we all want another space to hang out in and be a part of, but we’re not going to be able to rent a space or create a space if we don’t have some savings to pull together.

KC SAINT JOHN: You touched on something that I advocate all the time: The 5-Foot Rule. If you come within 5 feet of anybody the rest of your life, you reach out and say hi. It just opens up a friendliness. And then I want to touch on something with the Old West End. Can someone tell me what the heart of the Old West End is and why it’s so awesome? The Toledo Museum of Art. We have got something that’s the most amazing thing and for those of you who aren’t aware, the Old West End is also the largest collection of Victorian houses in the world. People all over the world know the Old West End. They don’t know everything else, but if we can get them in, we can educate them. The art museum is free and it’s ours. Classes, the art, a priceless collection. I mean, you can walk down and have multimillion dollars around you.

IMANI LATEEF: That’s not the thing I would tell people about the Old West End. The thing I’d tell them is that all the artists live in the Old West End. Everything progressive comes out of the Old West End or Downtown. For the most part. Yeah, the art museum is cool, but the real value in that area is the fact that the Collingwood Arts Center is there, the artists, the actual people who create the value for Toledo, are there. The art museum, they’re bringing art from all over the world and rarely would an Old West End artist show there.

TIM IDE: I’d just like to make one comment about social networking. One thing that we can do to promote the entire scene in general is when someone puts something up, share that. I have 2,300 friends and I haven’t added a friend in months. I get friend requests every day because I’m

Tim Ide

building a little buzz. Just click share. It only takes a second and so what? I’m friends with pretty much everybody in here, and when I look at your page we have 82 in common, but you got 380 or whatever, so it’s not the same people. Spider that around and we’re reaching now thousands of unique individuals and it only take a second. Yeah, I know 180 of my people have already seen it, but the other 2,000 haven’t, so it goes a long way for really free, quick promotion to where you see somebody’s doing something, spam that out for them, knock that out quick.

IMANI LATEEF: As far as documenting where this all started, the first Artomatic was definitely the starting point, the way I see it. Because it did bring all these different genres together in one spot, artists networking far more than they ever did previously. We had Hip-Hop represented, we had the Toledo Ballet, we had every other genre represented. At that point it really pushed the whole creative scene that much further.

And I don’t know if anyone mentioned it, but I think Marc Folk being on the Arts Commission sort of changed the energy for me. I think that’s when things started to really change. I’ve been an artist my whole life, but until around that time, I never actually got a call or an email from the arts commission saying we want you to be involved in this. So they were reaching out to me more and reaching out to other parts of the community, keeping that up is important.

YUSUF LATEEF: I don’t mean to get metaphysical (laughter) —

RACHEL RICHARDSON: Oh, please do!

YUSUF LATEEF: But I think we need a soul. There’s so much body and mass and talent — the body of everything, it’s here. We need to — whether it’s virtual space like the Internet or actual space like a building — whatever we infuse into that has to be a soul that beams out, you know what I mean? Wherever it goes, it just beams out there like a beacon. I can’t wait to say ‘I told you so, I told you so,’ because I saw this coming years ago, just in meeting people and watching people and what they were doing. I saw that, man, this place is just a giant and still growing. But I think right now it’s at a point where we see this thing, now we’ve got to put a name to it, we need to put a face on it. And I think expand it even further than any type of Internet social networking could ever do. It could be something as small as a bumper sticker, it could be a word, it could be a name, like Julie’s shirts, ‘Team Toledo.’ Actually, what did it for me was ‘Chicago Doesn’t Need You.’ That was the shirt that did it for me. I want to wear that to Chicago, you know what I’m saying?

MIGHTY WYTE: What I keep noticing, regardless of what angle we approach it from, is attitude and opinion. Whether it be the attitude of local artist saying I can’t do it, I can’t go to Chicago and be successful, or the opinion of people saying the art crowd is cliquey and not accessible, it all boils down to the way we think. We are the art community, and I think the biggest thing we can do — and we can start doing now, we don’t have to wait for a place or wait for somebody to do something else — is encourage interdependency. What can I help you with? I need CD art, or you need somebody to help you record music, you need somebody to help you master. I need someone to help put a website together. It’s OK to ask for help. If everybody’s accessible and OK with each other, and quick to ask for help, it lightens the mood and everybody’s happier. … Interdependency. It’s free, we can do it now, it’ll change the mood of everything and it’s so easy to do.

BEN LANGLOIS: We’re already aware we’re all working the same audience and that audience is relatively small still. So we are all competing in a way for that same audience at times. The only way around that problem is if we have a show or an event that is competing, we both need to be working just as hard to promote the other one. Just so that the audience in general can be bigger.

DUSTIN HOSTETLER: Five years ago, we didn’t have the problem of there being too many things to do, and I think now we have that all the time and that’s an awesome problem to have. It’s a big-city problem. And you’re right, if I go to your event and you remind me there’s that thing going on across the street afterward, I might actually do a little bar-hopping or I might actually drive across the city and check out more than one thing because God forbid we have multiple experiences in one night with multiple groups of people and spend our money in multiple places.

IMANI LATEEF: Maybe if we promote a collective event for each month, so basically your show is our event and we’re using all of our personal resources to promote your show …

Imani Lateef

YUSUF LATEEF: Possibly, or maybe this particular event is the official Team Toledo event of that night and that’s what we are all doing. So even if we’re sharing other nights, that night no, it’s the official night and maybe we intentionally keep the crowd for two or three different acts ourselves. We act like our own promoter.

MIGHTY WYTE: Organized crime works because it’s organized (laughter)

STACY JURICH: OK, final comments. Thirty seconds each.

JULES WEBSTER: One thing I want to say is that what we don’t have is more support from channels 11, 13, 24 and FOX. I want television coverage of our groups. I feel like we don’t have it.

LILD: I just think we all need to know each other better. Let’s just continue to diversify. Let’s just go to each other’s events and be more supportive and send that support out to the rest of the community.

NATHAN MATTIMOE: We can’t be afraid to crosspromote. We can’t be afraid to be like, ‘I know you’re doing this, but here’s this flier.’ You go to Detroit, fliers are everywhere, from every single other bar; you do that in Toledo and it’s like, Oh my god. It’s just the way it is. Don’t be afraid of that and don’t be afraid of bar owners that are just trying to make their place the hub of culture in Toledo because it’s not gonna happen.

RYAN BUNCH: I think the best way to spread the message is to be an individual ambassador. As much as we’re talking about helping each other promote each other’s events and pushing that outward, I think that’s great, but I think we should also make the personal commitment to once a month visit an area of town that we don’t go to, be it the South End, Old Orchard, or wherever, and go to an event there and talk to people at the those events and tell them what we’re doing. The best way to get people to come down here is to have a conversation with them in a place that they feel comfortable. I’ll take that challenge.

JERRY GRAY: Shake hands more often, stay friendly, just keep doing what you‘re doing and you’ll become more in demand and, as you do, so will your friends, and as they do, so will their friends. Everything’s going a lot better than what I’ve ever seen in Toledo.

DUSTIN HOSTETLER: I’m with Jerry. I don’t think anybody’s doing anything wrong, I just think we need to do more of what we’re already doing.

HAR SIMRIT SINGH: One thing I was thinking about this whole time is when I lived out West it was really cool because there are a lot towns out there that were built upon certain industries

Har Simrit Singh

and some of those industries’ times came and went. There’s just this void that’s left there, and it tends to draw creative people into it. It’s kind of what’s going on in Toledo, but on a larger scale. It’d just be cool to see Toledo follow that energy and move into something bigger and better. Not only just for Toledo but even this region, kind of becoming a cultural mecca for this whole Midwest area and have that be Toledo’s new identity versus Jeep or whatever else that Toledo’s known for. Transvestites on “M*A*S*H” or whatever. (laughter) Let’s redefine it. It’d be cool to see something come out of it.

YUSUF LATEEF: One thing about Toledo is we have a work ethic like crazy. There are more scrappers (laughter), a scrap yard in every corner. I used to scrap. Talk to everybody in a 500-yard radius and somebody scraps. And it’s a small city and there’s still scrap! (laughter) So it’s just like that’s the spirit of Toledo right there. You don’t need a lot to make it. We really create from what’s here. I think that’s the spirit of Toledo and I see it everywhere. We don’t have shit but we got shit. (laughter)

JULES WEBSTER: OK, we’re out of time.

MIGHTY WYTE: Thank you Stacy and Jules for putting this together. This is the catalyst. We all want better things for our city and this is it. We’re getting together and doing it instead of just talking about it. I’m excited.

ARTIST BIOS:

Ryan Bunch: Performing and Literary Arts Coordinator at the Arts Commission of Greater Toledo. Music Editor at Toledo.com. Community events coordinator. Former Arts and Entertainment Editor at Toledo City Paper. Poet. Southeast Michigan native. Old West End resident. More info: acgt.org, Toledo.com.

Tim Ide: Filmmaker. Farmer. Founder of Justajunkie Films. Partner in TiMe To Productions. Producer of the DVD series/TV show “Miserable City … you’re in good company,” an ongoing project documenting Toledo’s music and arts scene. Toledo native. More info: miserablecity.tv (soon to be live).

Kc Saint John: Musician. Glass artist. Fire artist. Owner of Lost Peninsula Arts and Glass and Support Your Local Talent. Former record executive and major label talent manager. Does special events at Toledo Museum of Art. Manager of collaborating artists group The Glass Dojo. Toledo Free Press Star columnist.